For Schmitt, a strong dictatorship could embody the will of the people more effectively

than any legislative body, as it can be decisive, whereas parliaments inevitably involve discussion and compromise:

“If the constitution of a state is democratic, then every exceptional negation of democratic principles, every exercise of state power independent of the approval of the majority, can be called dictatorship.”

For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Although the German concept of Ausnahmezustand is best translated as state of emergency, it literally means state of exception, which Schmitt contends frees the executive from any legal restraints to its power that would normally apply. The use of the term “exceptional” has to be

the “state of exception” as belonging to the core-concept of sovereignty was a response to Walter Benjamin‘s concept of a “pure” or “revolutionary” violence, which didn’t enter into any relationship whatsoever with right. Through the state of exception, Carl Schmitt included all types of violence under right, linking right & life (zoe) together, and thus transforming the juridical system into a “death machine”, creating an Homo sacer.

Schmitt opposed what he called “chief constable dictature”, or the

declaration of a state of emergency in order to save the legal order (a temporary

suspension of law, defined itself by moral or legal right): the state of emergency is

limited (even if a posteriori, by law), to “sovereign dictature”, in

which law was suspended, as in the classical state of exception, not to “save the Constitution“, but rather to create another

never abrogated, underlined Giorgio Agamben; rather, it was “suspended” for four years first at February 28, 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree and the suspension was

renewed every four years similar to a – continual – state of emergency).

Political Theology(1922)

This was followed by another essay in 1922, titled “Politische Theologie” (“Political Theology“); in it,

Schmitt, who at the time was working as a professor at the University of Bonn, gave further substance to his authoritarian theories, effectively denying free will based on a catholic world view. The book begins with Schmitt’s famous, or notorious, definition: “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” By “exception,” Schmitt means the appropriate moment for stepping outside the rule of law in the public interest. (See discussion of “On Dictatorship,” above.) Schmitt opposes this definition to those offered by contemporary theorists of sovereignty,

Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy by Ellen Kennedy). Schmitt criticized the institutional practices of liberal politics, arguing that they are justified by a faith in rational discussion and openness that is at odds with actual parliamentary party politics, in which outcomes are hammered out in smoke-filled rooms by party leaders. Schmitt also posits an essential division between the liberal doctrine of separation of powers and what he holds to be the nature of democracy itself, the identity of the rulers and the ruled. Although many critics of Schmitt today take exception to his fundamentally authoritarian outlook, the notion that there is an incompatibility between liberalism and democracy is one reason why his work is of continued interest to students of political philosophy.

Heller. In German history, this struggle leading to the de facto destruction of

federalism in the Weimar republic is known as the ‘Preußenschlag’.

Influence

Through Giorgio Agamben, Chantal Mouffe and other writers, Carl Schmitt has become a common reference in recent writings of the intellectual left as well as the right. This debate concerns not only the interpretation of Schmitt’s own positions, but also matters relevant to contemporary politics: the idea that laws of the state cannot strictly limit actions of its sovereign; the problem of a “state of exception“, etc.

Schmitt’s influence has also recently been seen as consequential for those interested in contemporary political theology, which is much influenced by Schmitt’s argument that political concepts are secularized theological concepts. The German-Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes, for example, engaged Schmitt widely in his study of Saint Paul, The Political Theology of Paul (Stanford Univ. Press, 2004). Taubes’ understanding of political theology is, however, very different from Schmitt’s, and emphasizes the political aspect of theological claims, rather than the religious derivation of political claims.

Nazi complicity

Carl Schmitt, who became a professor at the University of Berlin in 1933 (a position he held until the end of World War II) joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933; he quickly was appointed

the “Jewish spirit” (“jüdischem Geist“), going so far as to demand that all publications by Jewish scientists should henceforth be marked with a small symbol. Nevertheless, two months later, in December, the SS

publication “Das schwarze Korps” accused Schmitt of being an opportunist, a Hegelian state thinker and basically a Catholic, and called his anti-semitism a mere pretense, citing earlier statements in which he criticised the Nazi‘s racial theories. After this, Schmitt lost most of his prominent offices, and retreated